This Week at the Academy of Natural Sciences 10/25

By Rob Hassler

This week at the Academy, we made final preparations for Mega-Bad Movie Night! Having worked through several MBMN before, I was well aware of what needed to get done during the few days prior to the event. In order to properly prepare for the event, all of the logistic's need to be checked and set up prior to the doors opening. Some of these requirements consist of looking over floor plans and where things like bars, trash cans, employee tables, etc., we will be set-up, as well making sure visitor services is aware of any specific issues that they should be aware of. Some of my personal tasks leading up to MBMN, are placing things throughout the museum according to the floor plan, and getting evaluations ready for people to fill out during the event.

Outside of MBMN, I have started to work with another member of the education department in regards to the live animal shows that are featured at the Academy. A major part of the live animal shows, are the presentations given along with showing animals to the attending school groups. These presentations usually consist of pictures or some sort of visual aid, and the idea is to enhance the program visually through the use of powerpoint. This week, I sat in on a meeting to discuss the potential plan for incorporating and building a new powerpoint to go along with the program. While the Academy's designer sat in on the meeting to understand how to build a template for the powerpoint, I was assigned the role of finding images that could be used.

My final project for the week consisted of me giving a presentation on an online survey program called Qualtrics. A few months ago, I was introduced by Jill to the program, and was assigned with the task of learning how to use the program so in the future, I could show the rest of the education dept. how to use it. Similar to survey monkey, another online survey option, Qualtrics allows you to easily build and distribute surveys. Having built a number of surveys for people within the education dept. to use, it was my job to give a presentation to the other members of the dept. so they could then build and distribute their own surveys. The presentation consisted of me building a survey online from scratch over a projector, allowing everyone to visually see the in's and out's of the program. Although the Academy currently uses paper surveys, the transition of switching to electronically distributed surveys has begun.

This Week at the Academy of Natural Sciences 10/18

By Rob Hassler

This week at the Academy of Natural Sciences, we began to prepare for next week's Mega-Bad Movie Night. MBMN is easily one of the Academy's most popular program, each event bringing in a number of diehard followers to the Academy to enjoy a night of bad movies, live animals, awesome commentary, and new exhibits. A number of things go into the preparation of a MBMN, and this week I focused on preparing some key elements that would be need for the night of the event.

Although MBMN is all about the bad movie being shown (Them! this month), it's also a great opportunity to showcase the Academy, as well as other upcoming events that the Academy hosts. This week, one of the projects I worked on was the creation of a presentation that would be shown to the audience prior to the screening of the film. With an adult audience, it is a perfect time to showcase and advertise other adult only events. The presentation was updated to include information pertaining the upcoming Science on Tap event, what's new at the Academy, and even special adult on events, such as the Academy's Cuisine from the Collections. 

Another assignment I worked on was the completion of the Adult Programs Prezi. Having created a Prezi for MBMN, the idea to create an overview presentation of the Adult Programs at the Academy was suggested. With the affiliation with Drexel, there is an opportunity, especially with adult programs, to be engaging on a more frequent basis with the students of Drexel. Although people are aware of the partnership between Drexel and the Academy, there is often disconnect with students, and what the Academy has to offer. With an increase in the popularity of the adult programs, the creation of this presentation is an easy way to have people understand what is offered in a brief and concise way.

Finally, I got to see the T. Rex animatronic on the parkway.

This week at the Academy of Natural Sciences, 9/30

By Rob Hassler

I have become the Prezi guru, and I'm not mad about it. After making a presentation for Mega-Bad Movie Night, we thought it would be a good idea to take that same model, having an overview program presentation and spicing it up a bit, and using it for an Adult Programs prezi as well. That being said, as I have been starting to fully get the hang of using the program, I began to make a more extensive presentation for the Adult Programs at the Academy. As Jill and I think more about community outreach, and utilizing the newly formed relationship between the Academy and Drexel, presentations like these will be a quick and easy way to show people what Adult Programs are all about, and what they have to offer.

Thinking about outreach, and new ways to engage people with Adult Programs and Mega-Bad Movie night, Jill and I had the chance to grab coffee with Claire Connelly from Philebrity. According to Claire, Philebrity's main focus is on bringing light to Philadelphia's music and literary seen, through events, publicity, etc. Having met with Jill before, Claire and Philebrity were interested in partnering with Mega-Bad Movie night in some way, shape, or form. It turns out Philebrity was interested in the opportunity to help market and promote Mega-Bad's, giving them more publicity as well. Perhaps the most interesting idea to come out of our conversation with Claire, was that the incorporation of literature/poetry could be an awesome and unique way to engage audiences on a previously unexplored level. Hyped up on coffee and excited about the potential possibility of working with Philebrity, both parties went their separate ways to think of ways in which the two organizations could collaborate.

The final, and most unexpected experience of the week came when Jill asked me to head over to the Mutter Museum with her to check out their new exhibition Broken Bodies, Suffering Spirits.  Having never stepped foot inside the Mutter, I was extremely excited, and it didn't hurt that last semester we spent hours upon hours coming up with our own civil war exhibition ideas. Plain and simple, the exhibition was awesome. Although quite small, you could spend a good solid two hours scouring over the detail and historical instruments. The shining star of the exhibition however, is most likely the interactive Night Kitchen designed, in which you get to watch your "arm" slowly get amputated. In the upcoming Science on Tap, you'll get to learn all about it.

One final thing. The Academy of Natural Sciences had a temporary exhibit in their library on rare and extinct birds from their very own collection. Jill recommended I check it out, and it was definitely worth it. The birds were incredible, and the collection even featured two carolina parakeets that Audobon himself collected. Check them out below: